The end of 2020 marks the culmination of 6-years’ worth of targeted, stakeholder-driven and solution-focused research by the Tropical Water Quality Hub.
Working alongside up to 60 end-user organisations to define their applied environmental issues, we have commissioned 94 individual solution-seeking projects from our six key partner research institutions (CSIRO, AIMS, JCU, CQU, UQ and GU) and along the way supported over 225 jobs in regional Australia. Solutions have been delivered across the board and hundreds of outputs – final project reports, decision support tools, remediation and restoration guides, factsheets, videos and technical reports – are now available via the Hub’s website.
The sheer volume of our Hub’s outputs (with more being published every week) can be daunting. To achieve our Hub’s objectives of helping our end-users actually implement solutions that improve water quality and reef health, we are investing significant effort this year in synthesis across eight key themes. These are:
Innovations in crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) control on the Great Barrier Reef
Restoring ecosystems from catchment to Reef
Reducing nitrogen runoff without reducing industry productivity
Reducing end-of-catchment fine sediment loads and ecosystem impacts
Improving coral condition through better-informed resilience-based management
Influencing agriculture practice behaviour change and trust frameworks
Learnings from applied environmental research programs: Elements for success
Integrated environmental assessment to inform environmental decisions (cross-Hub project led by the Threatened Species Recovery Hub)
More information on the Hub’s portfolio of synthesis projects can be found on the Hub website.
Photo: Reef and Rainforest Research Centre